Skylar Joseph is born

Fantastic news! Our son, Skylar Joseph ___ was born this morning at 4:06 AM.

Weight: 7 lbs, 5 oz.
Length: 20 in.
Head: 33 cm
Chest: 32 cm

He is perfectly healthy. We get to take him home Saturday morning.




Brandi, my wife, is doing well also. We'll give more details in a future post.

Week 37 - Easter Photo

Looking at this picture, it is hard to tell which of us is pregnant.

More Preparations...

Yesterday, we went to our doctor's appointment. Brandi is hardly dilated, so the doctor is telling us to prepare for a long induction. To help move things on more smoothly, he has recommended that she put hot compresses on her brests and to tweak her nippples. She is also told to rock in a chair as much as possible. And, we are to have lots of intercoarse. Apparently there is something in seamen that is supposed to help the cervix and labor process.

Today has been very busy. I went to Brandi's work to help pack up her things and carry them home. When we got home, I put in our car seat bases. Then, we washed the dog. And, now at 8:30 PM, we are just finishing cleaning the upstairs of our house. The bathrooms will have to wait. Tomorrow, we go to Florence, KY to see my family for Easter. I will be working from home on Monday and Tuesday. Brandi's mom will be coming up Tuesday. Wednesday morning, we have an appointment at 7:30 AM to begin the labor induction.

In all of our haste to get everything ready, we've forgotten something very important. We have not selected a pediatrician! Labor is to be induced on Wednesday. Yet, we completely forgot to ask our OBGYN for a recommendation. I guess we'll have to call him on Monday...

(some words in this post are intentionally misspelled to avoid adolt content blockers)

5 days to go...

Today is Good Friday. I am on holiday, doing laundry, and cleaning house. Brandi is at work. She is a middle school teacher and is about to begin summer break one month early. We have a doctor's appointment this afternoon. Labor will be induced in 5 days. We have come a long way and are about to become parents!

This afternoon, I picked up a glider that Brandi had picked out. It isn't a perfect match for the room, but it's a nice piece of furniture.

Nursery Room Almost Ready

Today, we worked on finishing up our nursery room. It is almost ready for our baby. Brandi's Dad had done most of the work putting up the ice board and painting the walls green. My father caulked and painted the trim. Brandi's mom scrubbed everything clean. My parents shampooed the carpets. My brother's family donated the crib. I equipped the crib with a night-vision video baby monitor! Brandi and I refurbished the dresser by re-painting an old one that we bought at Goodwill. It may be hard to see in the pictures, but we have a farm theme. The bedding, rug, lamp shade, hamper, and wall hangings all have matching farm animals.


Here is a picture of the room from the other side. As you can see, we still have plenty of space for Brandi's glider chair... that is if we ever pick one out. Most of these chairs have between a 6 and 18 week leadtime. And, we've still not ordered one!


These two wooden art items were in my own nursery when I was little. My aunt Vickie painted them in 1973. The lower one is designed to hold two baseballs, two bats, and has pegs for a baseball glove to hang on. I think it's really neat that they match the nursery color scheme so well. And, I really like that there is something of my own to be passed on at such an early age. It sort of makes the room span a couple generations.

Inducing Wed. April 19th, 2006

We went to the doctor today. They did various tests and another sonogram. The baby is no longer breech. His head is down and he is facing toward Brandi's back. They couldn't get any good pictures of his face, so they gave us a print of his foot instead. So, now we have a nice picture of our baby's foot. I can't wait to show it to my parents! We are told that everything looks great. The baby is perfect, exactly they way he should be at this stage. The doctor says that at 37 weeks, he will be just as ready to be on the outside as if he went to his due date. The doctor re-iterated that MTHFR is a fairly new type of diagnosis and that doctors don't really know or agree on how it should be treated. He suggests that we induce labor early, on April 19th. The reasoning is that he will be perfectly healthy and ready to live on the outside and that inside of her he is at some risk. We are to go off of the blood thinners 3 days prior to induction. This will help protect Brandi from excessive bleeding. He says that there is some risk that the baby's lungs might not yet be fully developed or that he could get jaundice. But, he says that the chances are low and that he can be given oxygen if needed. The doctor seems to think that this risk is lower than the risk of waiting for the birth to occur naturally. And, induction is safer for my wife because she won't go into labor while on the blood thinners.

The week of April 17th, I was scheduled to be in Nashville for a planning week. We were supposed to be working on developing project plans for the next phase of our projects. My boss was originally to be away that week because his wife was pregnant and due April 20th. But, his baby was born early. Therefore, my boss will take my place during the week of April 17th. It's not the ideal week to miss, but there's no way they'd be able to make me go. I'll probably take a week's vacation when the baby is born and then work from home one or two weeks thereafter.

After the doctor's appointment, Brandi, her mother, her sister, and myself went shopping. We bought several items from our registry that we'd not yet received as gifts. I think that we've got the necessities covered. It seems like no matter how much stuff we buy that there is always more stuff we supposedly need. We live in such a materialistic society. I keep thinking back to my cultural anthropology class in college. In that class, we studied many different culture's perspectives on childbirth and child rearing. I don't know if he's lucky to be born in our culture or if all of our materialistic stuff will simply weigh him down and spoil him rotten.

More sick days...

I have been sick for a week. Even though I had a fever, I chose to leave town on business. I thought it'd be better to be away and sick than to infect my pregnant wife. Regardless, she became sick while I was gone. She doesn't seem to have it as bad as I did. But she has a cough, runny nose, and sore throat. Hopefully it will run its course quickly without a high fever. We're going to the doctor tomorrow for another visit. We'll have a sonogram done while we are there. We're getting so close! Only 4 weeks to go!

Question: Treatment Results

I have been getting many e-mails from viewers of this blog. Most are from people who are either pregnant or trying to get pregnant. I would like to hear from some people who have tried blood thinners and vitamins as treatments. What is the success rate?